Deliver us from evil

Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition, “Deliver us from evil.” In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther identifies that all evil ultimately comes from Satan, whom he calls the Evil One.

In the Greek text, this petition reads thus: Deliver or preserve us from the Evil One, or the Malicious One; and it looks as if he were speaking of the devil, as though he would comprehend everything in one, so that the entire substance of all our prayer is directed against our chief enemy. For it is he who hinders among us everything that we pray for: the name or honor of God, God’s kingdom and will, our daily bread, a cheerful good conscience, etc. (Large Catechism, Part III, par. 113)

Satan is the source of all the evil in the world. Shortly after creation, Satan rebelled against God and fell from his position as a leader among angels. Satan fell like lightning from heaven. He fell to earth where he tempted Adam and Eve to rebel against God. Their sin brought evil in the form of pain, misery, suffering and death.

Luther writes in his Small Catechism:

In conclusion, we pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would deliver us from every evil that threatens body and soul, property and reputation …

The greatest evil is that which threatens body and soul. Satan’s goal is to separate the coin from the owner, the sheep from the Shepherd, the son from the father.

Luke 15

We pray for God to deliver us from the Evil One. Yet, we are not naïve. We know who we are. We are not mere victims of evil.

So often we desire what the Evil One is offering.

We choose the sin over the sanctification, the iniquity over the innocence, the guilt over the godly, the vice over the victory.

Together we are the tax collectors, prostitutes, criminals, and other “sinners” to whom Jesus is ministering in the beginning of Luke 15. We are the hiding coin and the wandering sheep in Jesus’ parables.

A woman’s lost coin gets lost by accident– our lostness is a direct result of our own stubbornness to our ways, our own indifference to God’s will, our own love of sin over holiness.

As coins, we hide in corners, not wanting to be seen, avoiding one another, trying to commit our sins in secret. We embrace the darkness and avoid the light.

We are afraid that others will find out about our sinful behavior, so we hide in the shadows.

As sheep, we follow false shepherds – seeking greener pastures, wanting more than Jesus has to offer in his words of forgiveness, in his holy Word in our Bibles, and in his sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We don’t want the safety and security of the flock of the Christian Church. We covet the fun of this world’s depravity.

We are not only lost, but we are also lonely. Clinging tightly to our sin as we slowly die a spiritual and eternal death.

Luther is absolutely correct when he writes:

Therefore there is nothing for us to do upon earth but to pray against this arch-enemy without ceasing. For unless God preserved us, we would not be safe from him even for an hour.

(Large Catechism, Part III, par. 116)

Answered Prayers

God answers this petition for deliverance from the Evil One by sending his Son, Jesus, into this evil world. Scripture proclaims: “[The Father] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

Jesus did not enter the world as a mighty warrior to deliver us. He came in weakness, God in frail human flesh, the offspring of a woman. Jesus came as the fulfillment of God’s promise of a Deliverer from the Evil One. As soon as his children fell to the Evil One in Eden, God promised the serpent:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Genesis 3:15

For several millennia, the serpent knew the Woman’s Offspring would enter the world. He knew a fight of cosmic proportions was coming. He even knew the outcome. But the devil is the father of lies and the master of deception. He had deceived himself into believing he could win. He never imagined that God would defeat him with such lowly means as a manger, a desert, and a cross.

Look Up

Perhaps when you are in the middle of terrible suffering, tragedy and death, you might wonder, “Where is God in the midst of all this evil?” If you find yourself in this place … stand at the foot of the cross … and look up.

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This is where evil meets its match. The Creator dying for his fallen creation. The Shepherd laying down his life for his wandering sheep. The Son sacrificing himself for his prodigal siblings. The Innocent One exchanging himself for the countless guilty.

There Jesus endured the undiluted ocean of evil. The Bible is explicit – “God made him who had no sin to be in for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Yet Jesus turns this vile death into victory to life eternal; this ugliness into beauty; this horrid act into the act that won us heaven.

By Faith

There may come times when we think God is not doing a good job of delivering us from evil. But that’s because we cannot see all the evil that is around us. That only comes by faith. “Faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). We cannot see the angels with their flaming swords keeping the demons at bay. We cannot see the Lamb stepping down on the serpent’s head. We cannot see the mighty fortress that keeps the great dragon away from us. We have to accept those things by faith.

Nor can we see how our Father in heaven delivers us from evil by turning evil into our good. We must accept God’s promise by faith: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Pastor Aaron Goetzinger writes about the symbol for deliverance from evil:

Deliverance from evil is ours. No matter what we may experience in this life our salvation and future glory cannot be taken from us. When we die we will die only in the body and will be raised to life in heaven where there is no death, where there is no night and darkness, and there we will live with God. After all, God is not the God of the dead but of the living.

This seal features the open gates of heaven and a path that leads into paradise. Because of Christ, we will be delivered from the trouble of this life into heaven. We will be taken from this “valley of sorrow” to being with God.

At the end of Luther’s explanation of the seventh petition he explains: “and finally when our last hour comes, grant us a blessed end and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to himself in heaven.”

The End for Saints

As horrible as his death was, Jesus’ death was blessed. Jesus turns the terrible rending of the soul from the body in death into a blessed end for his saints.

Aged saints who are tired and worn out, finally find rest and fall asleep in the Lord (Matthew 9:24; 1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Those who have been widowed for so many years are finally gathered to God’s people (Luke 2:29).

The baptized child died in her youth but is spared from evil (Isaiah 57:1).

We Christians are not afraid of being persecuted or even put to death for our faith because we get to depart and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23).

We are not worried about losing everything in this world for we have gained a better world.

Philippians 1:21

When this is our outlook – that God keeps evil away from us, or turns evil for our eternal benefit, or uses evil to bring us home to heaven – then we have the answer to our prayers. We are delivered from the Evil One (Matthew 6:13).